Although there are
many versions of the Silent Night story out there, this is by far my favorite.
The video, from when Walter Cronkite joined the Mormon Tabernacle Choir a few
year ago is included at the bottom.
Silent Night, Holy Night — as told by Walter Cronkite
The 1900’s, the final century of the recent millennium,
brought unprecedented possibilities and promise. The children of these hundred
years would see more improvement in the human condition than ever before in the
world’s history. Advances in medicine, science, and industry would all but
eradicate disease, extend human life, open a dialogue among the peoples of the
earth, and lift them into the vast reaches of space.
But these hardly seemed like possibilities as the Christmas
of 1914 drew near. The nations of Europe were at war. Anxious to expand and
defend their borders, they summoned their best and brightest to the
battlefront. Young men answered by the millions.
A nineteen-year-old German boy left his job in London to
enlist in the German army. English boys working and studying in Hamburg and
Paris returned to London, put on their uniforms, and went back to fire upon
former friends. Secretary of War, Lord Kirchener, expanded the British army
overnight by allowing schoolmates to enlist together.
The tragedy of these battalions was no more evident than at
Somme, France. Hundreds of villages on both sides lost almost all their young
men in a single battle. The little paybook that every British soldier carried
included a last will and testament. Thousands of these booklets were collected
from the bodies of young boys, many reading simply, “I leave everything to my
mother.”
With hardly a backward glance, the promise of youth was
poured into the blind and futile aggression known as the Great War, World War
1.
The new century brought a new kind of warfare. Field
commanders quickly realized that digging in was the only way to survive the
sweep of machine-gun fire.
The German army had
marched across Belgium before being stopped at Flanders Field. Some sixty yards
away, British, French and Belgian troops languished in trenches infested with
rats and lice; pelted with freezing rain and shrapnel. As temperatures dropped,
disease took hold. Snipers picked off any who raised their heads above the
earthen wall. The war was but four months old, each side losing thousands a
day, both to bullets and that silent, common enemy: influenza.
Between the opposing trenches was an area about the width of
a football field: No Man’s Land. Littered with barbed wire and frozen corpses,
it was a sobering reminder of what the future might bring. Soldiers who
survived later recalled their dead brothers being gathered up and stacked like
cords of wood. By war’s end, over ten million would be lost.
Not surprisingly, given the circumstances, most of the
soldiers were religious; and many were Christian. On Sundays, communion was
passed in trenches on both sides, often to the sound of church bells ringing in
nearby villages. The occasional hymn was sung, and youthful voices were heard
across enemy lines.
By December, the war slowed and hopes for a quick resolution
faded away. As the soldiers contemplated their desperate situation, nights grew
long and hearts yearned for peace. December twenty-third. A group of German
soldiers quietly moved to the ruins of a bombed-out monastery. There, they held
their Christmas service. Later on that night, a few Christmas trees,
Tannenbaums as they were called, began to appear along the German
fortifications, their tiny candles flickering in the night.
Across the way, British soldiers took an interest in those
lights as they sang together the carols of their youth. Word spread, and heads
peeked cautiously over sandbags at the now thousands of Tannenbaums glowing
like Christmas stars.
Two British officers ventured over to the German line and,
against orders, arranged a Christmas truce. But the negotiation was a mere
formality by then. Up and down the trenches men from both sides already had
begun crossing the line to join the celebration.
Lieutenant Sir Edward Hulse “assaulted” the enemy with
music. In a letter to his mother he wrote, “We are going to give the enemy
every conceivable song…from carols to Tipperary.”
The Germans responded with a Christmas concert of their own.
It was not long before the cold air rang with everything from “Good King
Wenceslas” to “Auld Lang Syne.”
For the next two days, those tidings continued to spring
from the hearts of common men who shared the common bond of Christmas.
Further down the
line, a German violinist stood atop his parapet, framed against the skeletons
of bare trees and shattered fortifications. Delicately perched in this desolate
landscape, his cold fingers conveyed the poignant beauty of Handel’s Largo.
Whatever the spirit of Christmas had been before that hour,
it was now, above all, the spirit of hope, of peace.
A British war correspondent reported that later the soldiers
heard a clear voice singing the beloved French carol, “O Holy Night.” The
singer: Victor Granier of the Paris Opera. The night watch must have lifted
their eyes toward the heavens as they heard his plaintive call.
Christmas Day dawned over the muddy fields, and both sides
cautiously picked their way through the barbed wire. Side by side they buried
their dead.
A German officer known only as Thomas gave Lieutenant Hulse
a Christmas gift, a Victoria cross and letter which had belonged to an English
captain. Lieutenant Hulse responded by giving the German officer his silk
scarf. One German retrieved a photograph of himself in uniform and asked his
former enemies to post it to his sister in Liverpool.
Men who had shot at each other only days before gathered in
a sacred service for their fallen brothers. Prayers were offered, and the
twenty-third Psalm was read:
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me
beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of
righteousness for his name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they
comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine
enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my
life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
Nineteen-year-old Arthur Pelham-Burn, who hoped to study for
the ministry after the war ended, remembered: “The Germans formed up on one
side, the English on the other, the officers standing in front, every head
bared. Yes, I think it is a sight one will never see again.”
As the Christmas of 1914 drew to a close, soldiers who had
sung together, played together, and prayed together, returned to their
trenches. They must have felt reluctant to let the common ground between them
become No Man’s Land again. But as the darkness fell around them, a lone voice
floated across the few yards of earth on which they had stood together. In the
true spirit of Christmas, one voice, then another, joined in. Soon, the whole
world seemed to be singing. And, for a brief moment, the sound of peace was a
carol every soul knew by heart.
Silent night! Holy night!
All is calm, all is bright
Round you virgin mother and child.
Holy infant, so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace;
Sleep in heavenly peace.
Silent night! Holy night!
Shepherds quake at the sight!
Glories stream from heaven afar;
Heav’nly hosts sing Alleluia!
Christ, the Savior, is born!
Christ, the Savior is born!
Silent night! Holy night!
Son of God, love’s pure light
Radiant beams from thy holy face,
With the dawn of redeeming grace,
Jesus, Lord, at thy birth;
Jesus, Lord, at thy birth.
And that’s the way it was, one silent night almost a hundred
years ago; and that’s the way it can be as each of us embrace the message of
that silent, holy night.
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